Good morning Mister President,
Are you ready for your daily briefing?
Morning, Ron, morning … have you … hm … I mean … have you seen this pen …?
A pen, sir, are you searching for a pen?
distress a pen, ron, the pen! Barack gave it to me!
Ah, Barack’s pen. Yes sir, it’s right there on your table.
… Eh …? Ah! … Yes. the pen Barack’s. Yes, yes. Good … okay, what’s on?
Mister President, before I start your briefing, may I switch to German?
Yes, Mister President, German. An exception only for today. I apologize, but it’s important.
Hmpf… Germany… that’s so yesterday… give me the pen… good. So then, fire away, Ron!
Thank you, Mister President. It’s only for today too. For once, a lot of people in Germany are listening to what I have to say to you. Or they read along. And thanks to Mr. Bezos’ new simultaneous translation earpiece, you can still hear everything in perfect English. Great technique, isn’t it? Just for today, from tomorrow everything will be top secret again, Mister President, I promise. But today, as you know, is historic. So I figured we’d open the door to the Oval Office and let the good old fellows over there on the other side of the pond listen in, which I’ll tell you about in your morning President’s briefing.
embed
Ok, point one: As of today, you have virtually no power. With the Republican election victory in the House of Representatives and the Senate, the other side now has a blocking majority, and you know they will use them. Merciless to be precise. Specifically, this means: Domestically you won’t be able to get anything done between now and the presidential elections in two years, they’ll just cut the money out of your budget. And before you object that you could try to negotiate with them, I’ll add to be on the safe side: Sure, you could, but it would be a futile effort. Their new majority leader Kevin McCarthy replaced Nancy Pelosi as speaker. You know, that’s the guy who allied himself with the right-wing conspiracy mongers and to this day claims you stole the Donald’s election victory. Anyway, he said this morning on “Fox News”, I quote: “From now on Joe Biden is a dead man, he doesn’t get a damn cent from us!”
Damned idiot, this Kevin fool.
Yes, Mister President, I know. But that’s unfortunately the reality as of now. I’ll deal with that point two, then foreign policy doesn’t look much better. Sure, you’re still allowed to travel to the summits, G7, G20, state visits and so on. You can still sign treaties — but wherever money is involved, you need the Republicans’ okay now, and they’re going to wriggle you there too.
Listen, Ron, some of those republican guys are reasonable! They understand that America has to act reliable in the world!
Well, Mister President, there aren’t that many sane Republicans left after this congressional election. Most either entered Congress on their predecessor’s ticket or are supporters of Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis, he’s hardly better than the Donald, as you know. We must face the truth: the situation is grim.
Well, unfortunately nothing good from our point of view. I’ll just list the most urgent problems: The Ukrainians can no longer get heavy weapons from us, so Putin can arm himself in peace and start attacking with renewed vigor in the spring. The rescue of the nuclear deal with Iran is likely to fall through, which will embolden the mullahs to build the bomb even more now. We will probably have to bring back the troops we sent to Germany, Poland and the Baltic States to secure NATO’s eastern border…
… and we will also have to stay out of the NATO expansion from now on. Finland and Sweden definitely want to come along, but the Turk is blocking it and only wants to give in if we donate a lot of fighter planes to him – unfortunately there is no money for that either…
… Speaking of planes, our military presence in the western Pacific sucks insane amounts of money, you should command the aircraft carriers back. Then the Chinese get Taiwan, but that’s the way it is and …
I don’t wanna hear this bad news stuff!
I’m sorry Mister President, but that’s the situation as of today. By the way, you shouldn’t be the only one to be shocked. Our friends over in Europe probably slept just as badly last night. But guess what? Seen in this way, the whole thing also has its good side: Europeans finally have to take their security into their own hands. What have we not done for them in the past 80 years! It cost us tens of trillions of dollars! Now they should be able to manage themselves, they always think they know everything better anyway. And we are now concentrating on the Chinese. That’s what Barack would do, by the way.
Hm … well … if you say so …
Yes, I’m sure of it, Mister President. Concentrate on the essentials, stop getting bogged down! From today everything is different and… oh!
Mister President, I have to apologize, I made a mistake! Today isn’t even Wednesday morning, it’s only Tuesday – the congress elections aren’t until today! So the race is open, nothing is lost yet!
Goddamn Ron, are you serious?
Yes, Mister President, I am!
Then turn off the microphone! What I’m telling you now is top secret. I have a last minute plan…
decision in America
So, back to the here and now. You just read it: The congressional elections in the USA – “midterm” called – can have far-reaching consequences depending on the outcome. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and around a third of the seats in the Senate will be reassigned – with the politically filleted constituencies in many places favoring one party (see chart). In addition, gubernatorial elections are pending in many states. There are also referendums and votes on other posts such as public prosecutors. Will be decisive for Joe Biden’s Democrats whether they lose their majority in one or possibly both houses of Congress – the Senate being even more important. Should they lose in both houses, Biden would have to go on as “lame duck” doing politics with tied hands for two years.